


Fanged Robbery

by anonymousdaredevils



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4660431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousdaredevils/pseuds/anonymousdaredevils
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brett Mahoney, his mother Bess Mahoney, reptilian kidnapping, and fanged robbery.  <br/>A short fic for the Daredevil Minor Character Fic Fest</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fanged Robbery

Brett opened the door to his apartment, and before he’d even got both feet in, his mother announced, “I just can’t believe it.“ 

“What, Mom?” he asked. “And can’t I come in and have some supper before you start telling me about all the crimes in this neighbourhood that never get reported?”

“They get reported. I’m reporting them right now,” she told him.

“Yes, Mom,” he sighed. Maybe he could distract her. “Oh, by the way, Foggy Nelson sends you these.”

He handed over a paper bag, and Bess opened it eagerly, finding the cigars that Brett hated, but which Foggy never failed to buy whenever he needed something from Officer Mahoney at the 5th Precinct. It wasn’t bribery, not exactly, but Brett didn’t know what the word was for somebody else encouraging your own mother to put pressure on you. 

“Finally!” she crowed. “I was starting to worry I’d run out before Christmas. If you hadn’t come home with these soon, I would have been after you to do something nice for Foggy.”

She took out a cigar, reached around on the tiny table next to her armchair, and found her lighter. Brett sighed unhappily as she lit up and inhaled lustily.

“Your plate’s in the microwave, and I already set the time, all you have to do is press the button,” she called out.

“I know, Mom,” he called back, readjusting the time before pressing the button. “We’ve only been doing this for twenty years now, ever since we bought our first microwave and I had to show you how to use it.”

“I’ll bet Foggy Nelson doesn’t sass his mother the way you sass yours.”

“I wasn’t sassing, I was merely telling the truth, and of course Foggy doesn’t sass. He doesn‘t even live at home!” Brett didn’t know or care if his childhood frenemy lived in a broom closet now, or even in a sleeping bag under his desk at his office, at least he wasn’t forced to share with his mother. Brett loved his mom, but sometimes, she just got on his nerves.

“He still got that long hair?”

“Uh huh. Why do you ask? You thinking of growing yours out?”

Bess inhaled again and grinned. “Just thinking about that time when he showed up here that one time and said his father got so sick of looking at it that he sneaked in and cut it when Foggy was asleep. Poor boy looked like a porcupine got in a fight with a weed whacker. I practically had to shave his head to make him look presentable again. Don’t think he’s had it cut since.”

“Mom, that was years ago, why are you thinking of that now?” But Brett grinned at the memory, too, and seeing that he was relaxed, Bess pounced. “So, speaking of animals, I heard that somebody broke in at Ross’s and took Young Al’s black snake while he was out shopping with his brother.”

Brett groaned inwardly. His distraction hadn’t worked. “They took his snake? What kind of weird-ass person wants a six-foot-long black snake? I mean, besides Young Al.”

Young Al was actually ten years older than Brett, but was officially called Young Al in deference to his father, also an Al. Unofficially, his name was Weird Al, but Brett had learned the hard way not to call him that in the presence of his mother.

“Well, that’s what I heard. Just grabbed Indiana Fangs right out of his terrarium, and in weather like this, too. Poor thing’ll probably freeze right up without his heat lamps.”

“Indiana Fangs? Wait, that snake had a name?” The microwave dinged, and Brett used a hot pad to retrieve his supper. “And I’m sure it won’t freeze. It’ll just go into hibernation or something.”

“That snake was like family to Young Al. Of course he named it.”

“And did Young Al or any of member of his family report the theft to the police?” Brett asked as he carried his plate to the table and removed the cover. Leftover meat and potatoes again, and with congealed gravy that the microwave never managed to get fluid again. Oh, joy.

“They reported it to me,” his mother said, exhaling, then coughing in his direction.

“Mom, do you have to breathe all over my supper? And I keep reminding you every day that them telling you so that you’ll tell me is not reporting it to the police,” Brett reminded her. “It’s not official.”

“I know, but you know as well as I do that Young Al and official police don’t always play well together,” his mother said, and Brett sighed, because he did know it, all too well. The name Weird Al was more of an accurate description than a celebrity-inspired moniker.

“I said you’d stop by after you’ve walked me to church for choir practice,” his mother went on.

Brett groaned, then took another forkful of potatoes and watched his mother puff happily away. He’d used to like the smell of those cigars, until his dad had died suddenly, and he’d started to worry about heart disease, lung cancer, and secondhand smoke. “Mom, tell me, with all that smoking you do, how do you even have enough breath to sing?”

“So what if I have to mouth the words every so often?” she asked. “I like talking to my friends, seeing what’s new. And who’s new. We had a new tenor last week. Mmm mmm. He can sit down at my table any day.”

“Mom …”

“He looks like he needs to sit down at my table. Skinny as one side of a piece of paper, could use some good food.”

“I was waiting for you to say something like that, Mom.” 

“Uh huh. So you’ll go over and talk to Young Al?”

“Yeah.” At least it would give him something to talk about at the precinct to-morrow.

“Good. Now eat up so we can go. I don’t want to be late.”

Brett ate rapidly. The faster he could get his mother to the church, the faster he could get over to the Ross’s and talk about the missing snake, and maybe he’d have time to sit down and watch one of his television shows before Mom got home again and made him switch over to the news. Ever since that damned Daredevil had appeared on the scene, Mom kept hoping for new footage of him, and for all the wrong reasons.

It had started to snow before they set out and the ground was already white. Brett wasn’t surprised that they were some of the only people out. At the crosswalk ahead, a car stopped, and two men got out, looking around as though lost, then coming towards them. Brett thought they were going to ask for directions, but as they got closer, one of the men suddenly thrust out his arm. There was a snake wrapped once around his wrist, a black snake with an open mouth, fangs, and a tongue flicking in Brett’s direction.

To his credit, Brett didn’t scream, but he did take an automatic step backwards, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. A snake. Why’d it have to be a snake? He could have dealt with a regular hold-up, with a gun or a knife, but not with a poisonous snake twitching right in his face. It was a huge snake, too, long enough that the man had to support several coils of it with his other arm. 

“Give us all your money, or the snake’ll bite,” the second man growled. “And believe me, it’s poisonous.”

The first man jabbed his arm forwards again, this time close to Bess’s face, but she not only stood her ground, she swung her handbag at the man’s arm, knocking it away with a solid-sounding thump.

“I know that snake!” she said, catching the second man with the backhand of her purse. “That snake’s name is Indiana Fangs, and you ought to be ashamed of kidnapping somebody’s pet and using him for armed robbery! Let him go right now, otherwise this police officer will arrest you!”

“Wha — ARGH!” the first man cried as the snake, unhappy with the situation, angled its head and sank its fangs into his bare hand. Bess hit him again with her purse, and suddenly, he couldn’t get drop the snake fast enough. His accomplice had already turned and was running back towards the car, jumping into the front seat. The car started to drive off even before the snake handler was free, and he shook his arm up and down in panic until all of Indiana Fangs had slid onto the ground. Then he ran as well, racing up the street after the car and calling out, “Wait! Get me to the hospital before I die! This was your idea – you owe me, bro!”

“Whoa,” Brett said, stepping back again as the snake moved at his feet.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” his mother snapped. “Pick him up!”

“I ain’t touching no snake!” Brett said, slipping back into the dialect of his childhood for one terrified moment. Then he gathered himself. “I’ll call the precinct, we’ll get an expert over here.”

“It’s not like he’s poisonous! All you have to do is pick him up carefully and fold him into my purse here,” his mother said.

“If it’s so easy, then you do it!”

“Well, just hold the purse open and I will!” His mother bent down to the black coils on the sidewalk. “Poor Indiana Fangs, all cold and frightened. Come here, little snakey, I’ll get you back to Young Al.”

Little snakey. As though that thing weren’t longer than Brett was tall. Staring in horrified fascination, Brett caught his breath as his mother let the snake smell her fingers, then carefully picked it up, just as though she’d been wrangling reptiles all her life. With her other hand, she guided the tail end carefully into her purse. Brett held it open as wide as he could, hoping desperately that none of the snake’s scales would even come close to his fingers.

“I hope there’s enough room in there,” his mother said as she arranged the reptile. “We might have to take the brick out.”

“What brick?”

“The brick I always carry in my bag in case I need to whack somebody,” she replied. Brett thought he heard muffled laughter from somewhere above them, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the snake long enough to look. 

“You carry a concealed brick in your purse?” So that’s why his mother’s purse was always so heavy. He’d thought it was just woman stuff. No wonder the snake had bitten, and both men had run away!

“Poor thing, you’re half-frozen already,” his mother cooed, continuing to push the sinuous black body into her purse. Brett began to worry that she’d decide there wasn’t enough room, and make him reach in for the brick. But thankfully, the purse was voluminous enough to hold everything, and Bess snapped it shut with a little sound of satisfaction.

“No time for choir practice to-night,” his mother said. “We’d better get Indiana Fangs here back to Young Al before that boy does something foolish in his grief.”

“Yeah, the sooner that snake’s back where it belongs, the better,” Brett said. There was another amused sound from somewhere above, and Brett glanced up. Despite the falling snow, or perhaps because of its whiteness, he was able to see a red and black figure standing on the roof of the nearby two story building, staring down at them with his hands on his hips.

Daredevil. Just standing there, watching Brett and his mother get held up at snake-point. Of course.

“Hey!” Brett shouted. “Why didn’t you come down here and help!”

“I didn’t have to, your mother was doing so well on her own!” the figure shouted back, mirth audible in his voice, and then he vanished.

“Who was that?” his mother demanded, craning her neck to look up.

“Nobody. Just some rubbernecker,” Brett replied, disgruntled. If he mentioned he’d seen Daredevil, there was no telling how his mother would react. She might even send him after the man to get his autograph, or worse, leave him alone with the snake while she chased after the vigilante, pen and paper in hand.

It was only when they were halfway to the Ross’s apartment that Bess suddenly asked, “If that was just some nobody-rubbernecker, how’d he know I was your mother?”


End file.
